Archive for the ‘ Community Resources ’ Category

The good news is, the city does recognize that some people are permanent residents of hotels and motels.

“Permanent resident” means any person who occupied or has the right to occupy any room or rooms in a hotel or motel for not less than thirty (30) consecutive days.

However, status as a “permanent resident” only means that the usual 7% hotel/motel tax is not charged. It has nothing to do with tenancy or conferring tenants’ rights in long-term living situations in motels.

This is consistent with state law, which tends to keep considerations of landlords and innkeepers separate. Generally such a separation plays out reasonably, except in the case of people having to use cheap motels to keep a couple of walls between themselves and the streets on a long-term and/or indefinite basis.

In an email, Mayor Rey said, “The City is very sensitive to dispersing permanent residents from short-term rentals onto the streets. It is my understanding Lynne that due notice is given upon such displacements.”

“Due notice” is not required by DeKalb ordinance, and my Freedom of Information Act request returned no evidence of any such notice. Yet, conversation on Facebook suggests that people were indeed booted out onto the street.

Mayor Rey also said:

The closure of the local motel was not a result of city causation. We were merely enforcing health/sanitary living condition standards for short-term rental available to visitors.

Irony alert! Living on the street can be bad for your health, too, which is why people will put up with fleabag conditions to avoid it. Especially those with children.

I’m also pretty sure that if harm should come to someone as a direct result of being kicked out of his or her residence without time to make other arrangements, it would put the city at risk of legal action.

The larger issue, of course, is simply one of conscience. I want local government to have one. You?

Originally, I had no plans to publish this email exchange. It was just me as Joan Q. Public, sending an opinion on a budget allocation to His Honor and to other DeKalb city council members I thought might be receptive. I expected a generic “thanks for the input” response, which would have been fine.

But the conversation, which began in June, became extraordinary and eventually sparked a Freedom of Information Act request; and after digesting the response to that request, I’ve decided to share the emails with you. Read the rest of this entry

Last Saturday on Facebook, I crafted a “status” asking where the City of DeKalb warming centers are. There was nothing on the city’s website or Facebook page about them, and the last council agenda seemed to have dispensed with the idea entirely.

Warming Centers
One of the current challenges faced with the moving of the Police Station is that the City Hall is no longer a 24/7 building. Because of that lack of 24/7 presence, the building can no longer be considered a 24 hour warming center. The building will continue to be a warming center during working hours. The City does not have another facility that is capable of performing this function on a 24 hour basis.

I didn’t watch the meeting, but I understand from someone who did that council did not end up designating the new police station — or any building — as the 24-hour warming center.

Anyway, about 3 p.m. yesterday the following was posted on DeKalb’s website and Facebook pages:

Due to the extreme cold weather and the National Weather Service wind chill warning, the City of DeKalb will be opening a warming center if the need is there. If you’re in need of shelter due to the weather, please contact Police Dispatch at 815.748.8400

[I]f you survey potential businesses, would they consider DeKalb business friendly? I don’t know the answer to that question. We have heard anecdotal evidence; some say that DeKalb is one of the most business-unfriendly cities they’ve ever encountered. Well, if that’s the case, economic development will be a challenge. So, it’s something that perhaps could be addressed.

Yesterday I spent the day at the DeKalb Farmers Market. I’d previously understood from the ReNew person in charge that the city had agreed to keep Locust Street open for the duration of the market, which runs until 6 p.m. But they got antsy to start setting up for Corn Fest by mid-afternoon, put up barricades and killed traffic. Vendors started fleeing as early as 4 p.m., leaving little for the after-work crowd to shop for.

That’s not even getting into the impacts to downtown business people in buildings. Some of them already know they will see their worst weekend of sales for the year this weekend with Corn Fest back downtown. And even if the city’s/Corn Fest’s impatience didn’t worsen the sales outlook, the powers-that-be clearly squandered an opportunity for goodwill. There was some real anger expressed in the Van Buer parking lot yesterday and the blame was laid squarely on the City of DeKalb and Corn Fest. It sounded a lot like what the financial consultants heard.

DeKalb is run by a relatively small group of self-anointed VIPs, within government and without, who regularly tramp roughshod over the interests of others in the community. Some are the very same people who talk about economic development all the time yet seem to lack a clue about how to provide it.

Here’s one: Get over yourselves and start thinking about somebody else for a change.

With the exception of the Master Gardeners, the list represents a love-in between bureaucrats plus a business that has managed to get the city to advertise its brand and to make residents pay for that advertising. Read the rest of this entry

In the article, “DeKalb County Certifies Preliminary Ballot,” the county clerk stated that there are about six people who have filed as write-in candidates in April’s Consolidated Election so far. As of 9:30 a.m. today there were indeed exactly six:

Michael Franckowiak – Genoa Park Board

Veronica Bruhl – Kaneland Board of Education

Rick Goken – Shabbona Township Trustee

Virginia E. Toppe – Malta Library Trustee

Charles G. Rose – DeKalb Regional Board of Education

Antonio C. Amaya – Genoa Park Board

We could see additional declarations of write-in campaigns this week because the deadline is Thursday, after which the final list of candidates will be posted at dekalbclerk.com.

While I’m at it I’d like to recognize John Acardo and the Office of the DeKalb County Clerk & Recorder for their high standards of professionalism and customer service. Nobody answers requests for information faster than they do, the communication is very good and I like how I am treated.

Because the local library applied for a state construction grant in 2012, I decided to read up on these grants. One result of the research is doubt that all the money from a new library grant “pot” has all gone to libraries — but I am having a difficult time finding out for sure. This is a progress report for citizen watchdogs and others interested in state level grant programs, the Illinois State Library and/or the Freedom of Information Act.

In a story that appears to be designed to make us feel ashamed about questioning the destruction of recreation space that has become important to the community (I’ll comment further on the land swap deal another time), the Chronicle drops in this tidbit:

About that pool: Although the DeKalb Park District won’t be building the aquatic center complex envisioned in 2010, Capek said there is a plan to fix the pool at Hopkins Park.

The pool there now was built almost 40 years ago and is nearing the end of its useful life. The park district pursued a grant for the work, but missed out in the face of stiff competition, Capek said.

“The board made the commitment to do that within existing financing,” Capek said. “The project will move forward at end of pool season in 2014 and they hope to have it open for the 2015 season.”

Unlike the old plan, this time park officials plan to save money from their annual bond issue to put toward the pool improvements. The new pool will fit within the footprint of the existing pool, Capek said.

The park board has agreed to allow staff to stat moving forward with the project, and it should be discussed more at the park board’s budget meeting Dec. 6, Capek said.

DeKalb’s city council will hold a special workshop meeting August 22, 6 p.m. in council chambers, to discuss proposals related to the work of the Safe/Quality Housing Task Force. The agenda and backup materials (a 109-page PDF) are here.

The Illinois Policy Institute recently re-tested government website transparency in DuPage County’s York Township and released results last week.

Dubbed “The Local Transparency Project,” grades are based on the availability to the public of vital community information such as public meeting schedules, government employee salaries and tax rates. Since the project was launched by the Institute in February 2010, more than 160 government entities have been graded.

The government entities that scored above 80 percent were: DuPage County, Elmhurst School District 205, DuPage High School District 88 and the municipalities of Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Downers Grove and Lombard. The village of Lombard, in fact, maintained a score of 100 percent that initially awarded in May 2012.

Almost all of the websites gained points the second time around, and the top sites made such improvement as to suggest conscious responses to the first test.

And it’s not just about uploading content, but organizing it in such a way that it is easy to find.

The Village of Lombard website is tops for several reasons. Redundancy is one. For example, you can get to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) information and forms from both the “How Do I…?” menu on the front page, and via the “Online Forms by Department” menu. An “A-Z” index is also available, which is how I found out the village offers extra goodies for residents, such as a directory of local contractors who meet village requirements for insurance and so on. Read the rest of this entry